Senate approves landmark immigration overhaul bill

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., right, and Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., left, leave the Capitol after final passage of the Senate's immigration reform bill, in Washington, Thursday, June 27, 2013. Schumer, a Democrat, and McCain, a Republican, were lead authors of the bipartisan legislation that would dramatically remake the U.S. immigration system and require a tough new focus on border security.
— Associated Press Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., right, and Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., left, leave the Capitol after final passage of the Senate's immigration reform bill, in Washington, Thursday, June 27, 2013. Schumer, a Democrat, and McCain, a Republican, were lead authors of the bipartisan legislation that would dramatically remake the U.S. immigration system and require a tough new focus on border security.
/ Associated Press Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

The U.S. Senate passed a landmark immigration bill Thursday, approving a pathway to citizenship for unauthorized immigrants, greenlighting billions of dollars for increased border security and transferring the spotlight to the fractious House.

Vice President Joe Biden presided over the 68-32 vote. When he announced the result in the afternoon, the legislation’s supporters in the galleries began to chant, “Yes, we can.”

A bipartisan group of eight senators wrote the bill, which has been at the center of the immigration debate for months. President Barack Obama has made immigration reform a signature goal of his second term, and many Republicans seized on the issue after the November election in which Latinos strongly voted for Democrats.

Chances for a major immigration revamp were hailed as strong just months ago, but now the movement has entered into a more difficult phase.

Immigrant advocates feel compromised by provisions that they believe would create a hyper-militarized U.S.-Mexico border and hope to change those measures as the fight moves to the House. Opponents of the Senate bill said it lacks assurances that greater border security and other enforcement measures will be carried out before unauthorized immigrants gain permanent residency.

In the House, two approaches have emerged under a speaker who has vowed that his chamber will produce its own bill and not consider the Senate version. Some lawmakers are trying to craft a single unified bill, while others are introducing narrowly focused measures that would not grant citizenship to the 11 million unauthorized immigrants.

“This is clearly a historic moment in our nation’s immigration history, since the Senate bill is the closest we have come to a comprehensive immigration reform in many years,” said David Shirk, associate professor of political science at the University of San Diego. “That said, I think there are serious doubts about whether the House will be able to support this legislation, given the significant opposition from large numbers of the Republican delegation.”

Amid this type of forecast from Shirk and other political experts, Obama continued to urge that Congress come to agreement on a comprehensive immigration package.

“Now is the time when opponents will try their hardest to pull this bipartisan effort apart so they can stop common-sense reform from becoming a reality. We cannot let that happen,” he said in a statement after the vote.

Obama has said that by year’s end, he would like to receive immigration legislation that he can sign. For that to happen, the House would likely have to approve some package by the close of summer — a prospect far from certain at this point.

In the Senate, 14 Republicans joined 52 Democrats and two independents in support of the bill. California’s senators, Democrats Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, voted in favor of the bill.

Despite the healthy margin of passage in the Senate, the hours leading up to Thursday’s final vote were filled with impassioned speeches for and against the bill.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., defended his parents in reference to complaints from the bill’s opponents about immigrants who, on average, have a 10th-grade education.

“Well, all I can tell you is you have got a United States senator who came from parents that didn’t have (even) a 10th-grade education. ... To those who say that among this illegal immigrant population they are just not well-educated, you have no idea how offensive that is to a guy like me,” he said.

Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the Senate’s top Republican, said the bill’s priorities are misplaced.

“It seems pretty obvious to me, and I suspect to most Americans, that the first part of immigration reform should be proof that the border is secure,” he said. “Until they do, I for one just can’t be confident that we’ve solved the problem.”

In San Diego County and across the nation, the excitement among immigrant-rights organizations was tempered Thursday by concerns about the Senate bill’s final border-security provisions and the looming battle in the House.

“Sadly, today the U.S. Senate opted for excessive, expensive and extreme measures that will increase to unprecedented levels the number of federal agents in border communities in exchange for a pathway to citizenship,” said Christian Ramirez, director of the Southern Border Communities Coalition, which is part of the human-rights group Alliance San Diego. “The threat of militarization by policy makers has no place in a democratic society.”

Immigrant advocates will try to curtail or reverse those elements by directly lobbying lawmakers and hosting information forums to empower the public to do likewise, said Pedro Rios, chairman of the San Diego Immigrant Rights Consortium.

“From the beginning, we expected that border communities would become the scapegoat for misguided enforcement policies, and even more so as it moves into the House,” he said. “We did not expect the Senate bill to be so extreme and irrational in how it deals with border policies. The Senate bill represents a capitulation to unreasonable politics.”

Meanwhile, people opposed to the Senate legislation are holding out for the House to reject it outright or produce a bill that they said would emphasize enforcement. They are skeptical that rules about border security, visa overstays and employment verification would ever be enforced if the Senate package ultimately prevails.

Such courses of action have been pledged before, only to fade away because of weak or nonexistent enforcement, said Peter Nunez, a former U.S. attorney in San Diego.

He and other critics of the Senate bill said the amendment approved this week to dramatically boost border security lacks teeth, noting that it does not require full implementation and verified success before the unauthorized can become legalized.

They said the bill is incomplete without an employment verification system that can begin quickly — instead of the Senate’s four-year timeline — and a detailed plan for establishing a network to identify visa overstayers.

For Rhonda Deniston, head of the North County group Stop Taxing Us, a nonnegotiable element as the bill moves ahead is having Congress — and not the White House — decide when the nation’s borders are adequately secured.

“We don’t have a lot of confidence in this administration,” she said. “The Senate measures sound great in theory, but there has been a lack of enforcement, a lack of confidence. And the bill was just thrown together too quickly to push it through.”

Highlights of Senate bill

Border security

Sets out a series of requirements, such as doubling the number of U.S. Border Patrol agents, that must be achieved over 10 years before any unauthorized immigrants can move from the “provisional” category to green-card status.

Path to citizenship

The estimated 11 million people living in the U.S. without permission can generally obtain “provisional” status six months after enactment of the bill as long as certain conditions have been met. These include paying a $500 fine and not having a felony conviction or more than two misdemeanors.

High-skilled workers

The cap on the H-1B visa program would rise from 65,000 a year to 110,000 a year, with 25,000 more set aside for people with advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering or math from a U.S. school. The cap could go as high as 180,000 a year depending on demand.

Low-skilled workers

A new W visa would allow up to 200,000 low-skilled workers a year into the country for jobs in construction, long-term care, hospitality and other industries. Also, a new agriculture worker visa program would be established to replace the existing program.

Family immigration

Under current law, U.S. citizens can generally sponsor spouses, children and siblings to come to the U.S. The bill would limit such sponsorship to spouses, single children and married children under age 31.

Employment verification

Within four years, all employers must use the E-Verify computer system to check their workers’ legal status.